CB Radio

Wow this is a blast from the past.
I used to use a CB back in the day, up until 1995 (had a license and everything).

I still have my Midland Power Max and Midland PortaPac, used to love chatting to people all over on the CB.
 
Back in the day i had the most powerful set up in essex.

Cobra which was heavily modified with a set if boots that used to knock out tv's,A moonraker aerial which was 25ft above the house,a American silver base mike (cant remember the name) and a echo chamber.

Was a pretty amazing set up and often talked to people around the world.
 
I and a few friends were pretty into it. I had a proper big antenna installed outside of my bedroom, and my friends and i, would all meet up on the CB in the eve and have a laugh. I also had a couple of handhelds, we'd take with us, when out on our bmx's.

Part of my growing up really. Was a lot of fun.. Way before the internet existed. Like mid 80's.
 
I use to have a amstrad base station in the 1980's with mid channels I think it was called that was more channels than a normal CB and a massive antenna about 20 ft tall on top a 20ft scaffold pole. During hot summer months you could talk to people in the US and Africa and it was amazing .
 
I got one.
A midland 78 and stinger on my discovery, use it to tell mates when to shut gates when we are green laning.
Range of around five miles or more if you have good landscape.
I regularly get people on painswick hill (gloucesterdhire) speaking to people half way up the country like coventry and such like
Someone must be burning a few amps to do that!
 
In the summer your signal would bounce off the atmosphere and the range was incredibly increased. Like I said I spoke to guys in the states and Africa plus many more
 
I had a Midland and a dipole aerial mounted on a large PCV pipe outside my bedroom window. I was given the CB by an uncle for clearing a large garden as payment.

My handle was Dr Doolittle. I was very young and everyone was great with me. It was fun and they were interested to know how a little kid was on the CB.

A mates Dad agreed to use a SWR meter on my aerial - which involves adjusting the length of the aerial until the aerial is tuned (efficient in comparison to the radio wave). He twiddled the knobs on the meter without tinkering with the aerial and then said all done and unplugged the meter. Even I knew he had no idea what it was for - it was hilarious.
 
Used to have a base station rig with a big 12-16ft antenna back in the day (I say day I had a dabble in the 90s not the 80s). Also had a handheld midland tranciever.

I'm sure i made contact from someone in Scotland on a very weak signal but could hear him and was chatting.

Friends used to use it also so was pretty cool but then everyone got the phones and the internet . We used to go out on the bikes with radios. We had codenames for the channels

One of those things j wish I still had in the loft. Would love to try and experiment with frequencies and try and get some good signal skips. You could go quite far on a signal bounce with the right condition's and set-up
(international)
 
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I used a "trampers" (driver who's away all week) truck a few nights back and it had a CB fitted (against company policy!) and I was amazed at the drivel being chatted about , very few truckers from what I could tell, one guy near High Wycombe who it quickly became apparent was a wannabe trucker but didn't know a few extremely basic aspects of the job! :p - quite a lot of Eastern European banter which I imagine was truckers though.

Having had it switched on from Staffordshire to Surrey,using various channels, I didn't bother switching it on for the return trip, shame, it was very different only a few years back.
 
schizo said:
Back in the day i had the most powerful set up in essex.
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With all due respect, I don't think you did. There were many high powered stations around on CB with amplifiers and yagis mounted very high up, a beam will outperform a vertical aerial without any problem at all.

I can think of two or three people I know in the local area with absolutely bonkers CB setups.

Of course, when conditions are right, you can work the world on 27/28MHz with just a small aerial and a few watts but as we're heading rapidly into the trough of the solar cycle, it's a bit more difficult now.
 
schizo said:
Back in the day i had the most powerful set up in essex.

Cobra which was heavily modified with a set if boots that used to knock out tv's,A moonraker aerial which was 25ft above the house,a American silver base mike (cant remember the name) and a echo chamber.

Was a pretty amazing set up and often talked to people around the world.
Click to expand...

In the late 1980's i lived in a well known tower block in Essex on the top floor with my antenna on the roof at over 200ft high and 90 watts boost if i remember correctly . I use to bleed into 10 channels below and knock out the entire blocks tv .
 
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